[LINK] Australian Government Trial of Generative AI for Law, Education, Health, and Aged Care

[David]

On 7/03/2024 12:53 pm, Roger Clarke wrote:
> (IANAP, and, not being a philosopher, I'm unsure how far self-awareness is beyond self-referentiality.  For starters, does Copilot in any sense 'know' that its name is Copilot?). 

Well I'm not a philosopher either, but I'm quite sure If you asked (?) Copilot its' name it would probably respond "Copilot".  If you asked why "Copilot" it would probably look for references to that word in its' accessible data stores (the internet, some more specialised libraries relating to the particular project, etc.) and come up with an associative definition of the word "copilot".

But unless it had data relating to this particular system, I very much doubt it would come up with the real justification of the name in some marketing department.  An experienced human with even a smidgen of cynicism about PR and marketing would do much better!

As for self-awareness, if one accepts that the human (or feline) mind is functionally instantiated in the human (or feline) brain and brains are purely physical objects, then since humans have self-awareness I suppose AI systems could _in principle_ have self-awareness too one day.

But that day is so far off I think the Digital Transformation Agency is enough to think about right now.  I'd like to see a progressive government here for more than one term thanks!!

_David Lochrin_